Customer Reviews

Grasshopper and the Ant by Harvey Kurtzman

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This is one of the few comics that Harvey Kurtzman both wrote and drew. It was done in 1960, after HUMBUG had folded, and before Kurtzman did HELP for Warren. He was on his own, had just done JUNGLE BOOK for Ballentine, and was working for Esquire magazine, doing ink and watercolor comics.

"The Grasshopper and the Ant" was created when his brush technique was in top form, and the art in this volume is striking. This book is the only reprint of this work, and the reproduction is gorgeous, done from the original art, at it's original, digest, size. The colors are vibrant, and each page of the story is given a leaf in the book, there is nothing printed on the backs of leaves. The ink is palpably thick on each page. The paper is a heavy, white bond. The spine is stitched. The book is built to last and enjoy for years.

The story is prime Kurtzman satire - it is listed on this page as for "young adult" tho I can hardly imagine a young adult enjoying it. Kurtzman uses the trappings of the Aesop's fable to tell a story about the existential choices in life, and how those choices intertwine with fate. I can't imagine a young adult being able to relate to those sort of choices, being too young, and being turned off at what seems like a "children's book."

In the story, the Grasshopper is a hipster, who lives life for the moment, and the Ant is a workholic who values security for the future. The Grasshopper becomes more convinced, as the story progresses, that he must live for the moment, as he watches friends suffer at the hands of predators. How can we live for tomorrow, when we may be gone today. But the Ant continues his work - while the Grasshopper rants philosophically, the Ant is storing away food for leaner times.

This story is parable with echoes from Kurtzman's own life, as Denis Kitchen illustrates in his excellent introduction. Kurtzman was married, with four kids, working in a business that only paid by the page of finished work. He also was the hippest cartoonist of his time period, a frequent visitor at the Playboy mansion, who hobnobbed with jazz musicians and models. His dark, but comic, look at the two sides of this equation, the need to enjoy life, and the need for security, is and hardhitting. The art is vintage Kurtzman, with that gorgeous thick line, exaggerated facial expressions, kinetic - at times frentic - energy, and oddly alluring women. He gives each season of the year it's own color palette with the watercolor wash. It is a visual delight, as well as a powerfully written book. I highly recommend this forgotten gem. It was originally priced at twenty-five bucks, and even tho it is a thin book, the book itself is so well produced, that it is a work of art as well.